23 People Arrested at CitiBank (NYC)

As a business owner I will tell you that should you come to my place of business and engage in disruptive, loud, or otherwise inappropriate behavior I
will tell you, and if need be force you, to leave. My business is my property and you will conduct yourself in a civilized manner and not interfere
with the operations of my business or its out the door with you.

Thank you. This was exactly the point of my last post. NO ONE has a right to go into a business and stir up trouble. And if you do,depending on the
situation,you should expect to either be asked to leave or have the police called on you for actin like an idiot.

edit on 15-10-2011 by
nightstalker78 because: (no reason given)

Actually depending on the state, the business owner can get physical. In Missouri if you are aked / told to leave and you refuse, you have every right
to use whatever force, exlcuding death, to get that person from your property. Some of the calls I have taken at the hospital have been along these
lines. People are told to leave by security, they refuse, security does there thing, we arrive and ttransport them to jail. They are completely
clueless and pissed they cant press assault charges.

Besides, these people protesting im prestty sure wouldnt take kindly to people coming to her place of employment or house and acting like a moron.

I understand that more will be closing their BofA/Citibank/WF/USBank accounts online now, but if customers want to show up at their bank, it would be
prudent to have a well-placed camera capturing the exchange from beginning to end for the record.

The single biggest thing we can do as a form of civil disobedience is to not pay income tax. This is the act that the establishment is most scared
of. The whole purpose of the IRS is to instill fear in citizens. How dare you not want to give your hard earned money to this corrupt, debt ridden,
war mongering, spend happy government.

They will seize your assets, garnish your wages, attack future income and if all else fails, they will IMPRISON you. Thats right. In America, you
can be stripped of your civil liberties if you dont pay income tax...

Where is the proof that says these people were disruptive? Granted, a group of people who plan to withdraw their money from banks at the same time
will cause long lines and disruption of service, but does that give the bank the right to arrest them? If they were all planning to make a deposit,
I'm sure the bank would have gladly accommodated them.

I never see anyone arrested on Black Friday at retail stores. There are definitely long lines there and the crowds cause bottle necks in the stores!

CitiBank created trumped up charges to avoid a run on their bank, it's as simple as that.

and yet the IRS can't point it out just where in a law book it states it's mandatory to pay taxes...

because it doesn't...

But you know people might want to pay them if they were used for what they are supposed to be for... and that doesn't mean war... it means roads and
education... things that benefit the economy NOT the government.

I might agree, but how much of our money should go to a central government which has ruined every program its ever touched from social security to
education to the value of our dollar?

Most, if not all, of these responsibilities can and should be handled on the state level.

Currently, less than half of the government's revenue comes from income taxes. If the government could make do with a paltry $1.4 Trillion a year
(which was the total budget in 1995), we could completely eliminate the IRS and the income tax.

But it was unclear whether the movement, which has been driven using social media, would sustain momentum beyond Saturday. Critics have accused
the group of not having a clear message.

You see, people, you are being accused of not having a CLEAR MESSAGE

The protesters say they are upset that the billions of dollars in bank bailouts doled out during the recession allowed banks to resume earning
huge profits while average Americans have had no relief from high unemployment and job insecurity.

I understand that there's a set of regulations that banks can use to prevent a bank run; i'm not sure if there's a law, or if is punishable by it.
But a Bank Run in my opinion, in a massive scale will do no good for them nor for us. too big too fail. In the Great Depression, for example, bank
runs were one of the things that accelerate it, and make it worse.

I live in Seattle....and it has been on the local news...that many, many people in the Northwest are withdrawing their money from the various
banks...and depositing it into Credit Unions....not one of these people was arrested.

I just don't understand why the people in NYC at Citibank were arrested.....what is it that we are not being told about this story?

Well, Seattle-ites are generally a bit more mellow and melancholy in demeanor. New Yorkers tend to be brash and boisterous even when doing such
things as eating breakfast, commuting to work, and performing financial transactions

TextCitibank Public Affairs issued the following statement regarding today's incident: "A large amount of protesters entered our branch at 555 La
Guardia Place around 2:00 PM today. They were very disruptive and refused to leave after being repeatedly asked, causing our staff to call 911. The
Police asked the branch staff to close the branch until the protesters could be removed. Only one person asked to close an account and was
accommodated." To be clear: no one was arrested for closing an account; we didn't lock people in our branch - the police decided to close the branch;
and we didn't ask for anyone to be arrested - that is a police decision.

I do not know if I agree with OWS it is really hard to tell what they really stand for. That being said I definitely have no love for the big banks. I
have recently changed my banking to a local credit union and so far have been very happy. I notice several people have talked about making sure that
they only invest in local banks. I did not consider this only that I was tired of all their new "inventive" fees. I believe even if they still end
up with the money in their vaults from the credit unions they still will not be making all that fat cash from the fees they charge. If a majority of
the people or even if just a major defection happens they will definitely rethink their greedy ways.
Though I do believe this would just be a temporary move to stop the bleeding until the people have forgotten their old ways and we all know in
today’s world that would not be very long. After a short period of time they would dangle a few shiny objects in from of the masses to bring them
back.

"Two dozen people were arrested at a Citibank branch when they refused a manager's request to leave. Most were detained for trespassing. Five others
were arrested for wearing masks"

I mean, wearing masks? At a bank? What do they expect?

I think the problem with protests of any sort is that even if the majority are peaceful etc., there will always be people who go too far and cause
problems. Granted, the security and police are just waiting for them too sometimes, but if you want to remove your money from a bank, just go in and
get it without making a big scene. Make a big scene OUTSIDE the bank.

The man in the video above who wanted to take his money out of the Bank of America made a "tactical maneuver" physically, like in football? And he
expects things to go smoothly? The fact is, there are protests happening, people everywhere, and ALWAYS the threat that things could get out of hand.
The bank is not going to NOT let you take your money out, but maybe that was a bad day to do it? Just like the bank might be closed on a day it was
robbed - you'd have to wait a day or two to take your money out. But to start claiming the banks are preventing you from taking your money out is
just losing sight of what's happening.

TextAt banking giant Goldman Sachs, chairman Lloyd Blankfein admitted that when he heard police sirens outside his building, “I was sure they
were finally coming for us.” The Goldman chief said he started running up and down the halls “screaming at people to feed the document shredder
like Chris Christie at a pie-eating contest.” Mr. Blankfein said that he felt “palpable relief” when he realized that the police had come to
arrest the protesters and were leaving the bankers at large. “That was a close one,” he said, chuckling. “We’re all going to have a good
laugh about this over the weekend in the Caymans.”

TextCitibank Public Affairs issued the following statement regarding today's incident: "A large amount of protesters entered our branch at 555
La Guardia Place around 2:00 PM today. They were very disruptive and refused to leave after being repeatedly asked, causing our staff to call 911. The
Police asked the branch staff to close the branch until the protesters could be removed. Only one person asked to close an account and was
accommodated." To be clear: no one was arrested for closing an account; we didn't lock people in our branch - the police decided to close the
branch; and we didn't ask for anyone to be arrested - that is a police decision.

If you follow the link , you can post comments there...

edit on 16-10-2011 by svetlana84 because: Typos

You don't expect these OWSers to believe this do you?

Clearly these 25 people were single handedly going to bring down the bank by closing their accounts...so they had to be arrested

It's starting to be clear that OWSers don't like facts...they are behaving just like the Tea Party.

I apologize. I should of stated at the state level as well. As those are my beliefs too. Washington has it's hands into things they shouldn't and no
one is slapping the hand. Parents know that if you let your kid get away with things then they will walk all over you. Same applies here I believe. It
reminds me of parents that let their kids run all over the store with no control. Parents (US civilians) turn their heads to their children
(government) while other parents (nations outside US) acknowledge their disobedience, or lack thereof...

This is what these people wanted to happen...they organized it to be disruptive...they didn't want to just close their accounts.

Let's not act surprised by manufactured controversy.

I believe this person is the most accurate in this discussion. If you organize 50 people to come in and close their accounts, this is definitely
disrupting the normal flow of business. Yes, you have a right to close your account, but come on, common sense tells you an organized group of people
doing the same thing is going to cause a manufactured controversy.

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